


you coming through the door with a cigarette lit, and i'm not supposed to think your death wish is cool

by nathanexplodeme



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Ableist Language, Alcohol, Angst, Blood, Eye Trauma, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Klok, Prompt Fill, Smoking, Suicide Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3902518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nathanexplodeme/pseuds/nathanexplodeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an incident at Mordhaus, Magnus steps out to have a smoke and clear his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you coming through the door with a cigarette lit, and i'm not supposed to think your death wish is cool

_That...could've gone better,_ Magnus thought to himself, reeling against the railing outside of Mordhaus. His left eye throbbed, and the world was halved by the loss of vision in it. He could've shut his mouth, he could've let Nathan call him crazy, psycho, insane, whatever, it wasn't like he hadn't heard those things before. He could've apologized for being so overbearing, he could've let them play how they wanted. But it was all _wrong_ , every chord too sloppy, every beat just off enough to make him squirm. Even so, he could've swallowed down that feeling, like he did nearly every day of his life. Magnus just didn't know what made that night so different.

The older man heard the screen door, held on by duct tape and the resolve of five broke musicians, squeak shut behind him. Raising his flask to his lips, the liquid inside warm and bitter and mingling with the blood that ebbed from his eye socket, he asked “What the fuck are you still doing here kid? Go home.”

The young man faltered and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I can't I, uh,” he toed at a cigarette butt on the top step of the concrete stairs with his boot. “I think my grandma dischowned me.”

This piqued the older man's interest. “Did she really?” Magnus smirked, passing the flask to the bassist.

“I dunno, I can't remember. I'm schure sche doesn't want me hangin' around anymore though. I'm a uselessch piesche of schit.”

“That's for sure.” Murderface glared at him, but the gesture was disingenuous; something in his eyes was too tired to be indignant.

“Come on, don't look so sour. You're the one who said it. Got a lighter on you?”

Murderface took a lighter from his vest pocket and, just after offering it to the guitarist, tossed it down the stairs, plinking as it hit each step.

The older man sighed, but he really didn't know what else he should've expected. It was Murderface after all. “Thanks Willy,” he muttered, and lit a cigarette with a book of matches from his windbreaker's pocket. Printed on the book was the words _Depths of Humanity_ in font that just screamed “trying too hard to be edgy.” In spite of himself, he shoved them back into his pocket. “What a fucking farce this whole goddamn thing is.”

 

“What?”

“The band. Life. I don't fucking know.” God, that was pretentious. He took a long drag, relishing the way it burned all the way down and collected deep in his chest like a fog.

Murderface leaned with his elbows on the railing that oversaw the complex's parking lot, in an attempt to mirror Magnus' posture. “Scho what're you gonna do now that...y'know.”

“Try not to get arrested. Pretty sure stabbing a guy is an offense punishable by the law.”

He scoffed. “Nathan'sch not gonna call the copsch.” Murderface was pretty sure the guy was a closet anarchist or something.

“Well he should. I'm fucked either way. Might as well get three square meals a day out of it.” It'd certainly be more than the five broke musicians were getting.

“You'd rather go to prischon? What the fuck Magnusch.”

“Got any better ideas, Einstein?” Magnus asked, stubbing out one cigarrette and lighting another.

Looking anywhere but at the man next to him, he offered, “Well...we could leave and try again schomewhere elsche. The whole band thing.”

The older man peered at Murderface out of the corner of his eye. “We?”

“I mean...yeah I guessch scho. Me and you, bassch and guitar, on the road. Living in motelsch, getting schitfasched...” He trailed off, obviously embarrassed at his candor.

“It sounds to me like you've put some thought into this.”

“You're not the only one who's unschatischfied with the band,” the bassist grumbled.

“Murderface,” he scoffed, “I think knifing our front man in the back indicates something a little stronger than dissatisfaction.”

“Whatever. Either way, fuck those pricksch, am I right?”

“You'd just up and leave the very people who gave you a sliver of goddamn purpose in your life?” The irony of the statement wasn't lost on him, but he swallowed it down along with a mouthful of smoke.

“What're you trying to schay?!”

 

Something vile and bitter rose up in him just then, like acidic bile, the same something that lashed out at Nathan earlier that night, pushing past his lips without the consent of his brain. “Get real,” he spit. “If Nathan hadn't given you a chance, you'd be dead at the bottom of the Chattahoochee River by your own hands, you mental little shit.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he chased them with a swig of his flask, penitential, but without humility.

Murderface froze, hands balled at his sides, shoulders raised imperceptibly in a fight or flight response. “You schut your cock schucking mouth you schon of a bitch,” he growled.

“Did I strike a nerve William?” He damn well knew he did.

The bassist jammed his hands in the pocket and turned towards the direction of their door. “Fuck you. I schould fucking call the copsch myschelf.”

“But you won't.” His retort came out as less of a sly jab to save face and more of a matter-of-fact statement. Maybe he was losing his touch.

“What makesch you so schure?”

“Because you _like me_.” Shit. They were just letting it all out that night. But if it were to be his last night in Mordhaus, Magnus might as well tie up as many loose ends as he can with the one person he still had some semblance of feelings towards.

“Bullschit.” Murderface didn't turn back around.

“You think I haven't known this whole time? I'm a grown-ass man, Murderface. I know a juvenile crush when I see one.” His fingers itched to light a cigarette, flip the cap of a flask, close around a neck, something, anything. This wasn't going as well as he'd hoped.

“I'm an adult too!”

“Nineteen doesn't make you an adult, you're still a brat, but now you can vote and gamble. Big whoop.”

“Scho that'sch all you schee me asch? Schome brat?” He peered over at Magnus, gauging the other man's reaction.

“Something like that. I dunno, I haven't put too much thought into it. Guess I'll have plenty of time to, though. Time to think about a lot of stuff.”

“You were scheriousch about leaving?”

“Don't get sentimental on me. Of course I'm fucking leaving, what future do I have here?”

“...You could alwaysch apologize.”

“Could I? What, and be at Nathan's throat for a couple more years before one of us snaps again or we split up, whichever comes first? This was never something that could ever work, I see that now.”

“Hindschight'sch 20/20, but you've only got 20/0.” He sniggered, a low sound obscured by his hand over his mouth.

Magnus sighed, exasperated. “What the fuck are you going on about kid?”

The younger man turned around with a shit-eating grin plastered across his wide face. “Becausche...y'know,” he chuckled, “Your eye.”

If there was a sound that said “done” more precisely than a groan, the guitarist would've made it. “Really funny. I actually think I might be going blind, you fat prick.”

“That'sch what happensch when you schtab people!” Magnus couldn't tell if his defensiveness was feigned or otherwise. It was often hard to tell, but especially now with his head swimming with blood loss and the beginnings of a panic attack.

“Sounds about right. I'm a little unstable, but hell, aren't we all?” he conceded, gripping the cold metal.

Murderface resumed his previous position against the railings, but this time— and Magnus couldn't quite be sure— just inches closer to the other man. “Maybe juscht you.”

They both stood there, no more cigarettes between them, the crisp winter air drying the blood on Magnus' face and raising goosebumps along Murderface's arms. “Yeah,” the older man coughed, his lungs protesting the cigarettes he impulsively chain smoked, reaching an arm over to rub the bassist's shoulder in an awkward attempt to warm him up. “Yeah maybe it is just me.”

 

Just then, somewhere inside the fucked-up depths of William Murderface, something broke. “Hey Magnusch...” he began, much too quiet for the normally brash man. “No one elsche here likesch me but you.”

Magnus stiffened, and a small grin crept onto his mouth, concealed by the low light. “Never said I liked you.”

“But I know you do! Just lischten okay? No one elsche here likesch me, they just put up with me becausche none of them can play bassch, and they can't find anyone elsche schtupid enough to join the band. If you leave...” he trailed off, his sudden burst of confidence dwindling.

“ _When_ I leave,” Magnus corrected.

“I'll be all alone.” The air felt thick with the weight of his statement, and it made Magnus itchy.

“Good thing you're used to that, right?” he jeered.

The sliver of trust that Murderface had in the guitarist shattered, and his face fell. “You're a fucking asschole, you know that?” he said, almost breathlessly.

Oh, he knew. He knew damn well that he was, after all he was reminded of it nearly every day of his adult life. “After all this, and you're just figuring that out? You're a bit late to the party, might wanna have a talk with Nathan about it.” Almost unnoticeably, the older man cringed as the words, dripping with the intent to hurt, left his mouth.

Like a powder keg, the bassist went howling into his defaulted threats. “I'm fucking leaving too!” he yelled. “I'm gonna throw myschelf off this goddamn balcony and no one'll miss me, eschpeschially not you!” As often as his suicide threats were, the whole of the band very well knew that none of them were empty.

Magnus furrowed his brow, assessing the younger man's defensive stance, like a spooked animal. “Okay okay, no need to be so dramatic. Look, I'm sorry I'm being a dick, I'm just freaked to be honest. I didn't know I had it in me to do what I did, and I'm a little fucked up over it. And we both know you'd never actually kill yourself, Willy.” It wasn't definite if the statement was a reassurance to Murderface or to himself.

“Don't call me Willy.”

“Alright alright. Sorry. Hey, come here.” Swallowing his pride, Magnus pulled Murderface into a tight hug.

At full volume into the former's ear, the latter said, “Thisch isch gay.” Incongruous with his words, he wrapped his arms around the guitarist's waist and buried his face into his curls.

“Yeah, maybe it is. You definitely don't mind though.” Magnus couldn't help getting one last kick out of him.

Pinching his arm with chewed-down finger nails, Murderface asked, “What doesch that mean?”

“Just shut up and enjoy it kid. But not too much, if I feel your boner I'll toss you off the balcony myself.”

The younger man nodded.

 

“Hey.”

“Hm?”

“I'd fucking miss you if you died. Hell, I'm gonna miss your whiny ass when I leave.”

Murderface murmured something unintelligible into the pocket between Magnus' neck and shoulder.

“What?”

The older man could feel heat radiating off the bassist's face. “I can't understand you with my hair in your mouth,” he replied.

Suddenly, his mouth was much too close to the guitarist's ear, muttering, “I'm gonna missch you too.”

“Ah.” Magnus shifted with the intent to pull away, but something in the way Murderface held him like he was a life preserver in deadly ocean storm made him unable to. There was a weightless quality to the emotions, unknown and unnamed, that danced around in his stomach, but he wasn't sure if he liked them or not. The older man decided to stay until he could figure it out.

 

And so they stood there, entwined, their breathing nearly synchronized, until a voice called to them from the other side of the screen door behind them. “If you fags are done huggin' it out, we gaht somethin' ta talk about. Inside. Right now.”

 

What happened next was inevitable, though neither of the men could ever expect it to pan out the way it did.

 

But the two were never known for their predictability.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this was a fill for a prompt from devilishkurumi's metalocalypse prompt generator, and also an excuse to write for my guilty pleasure trash ship. title is part of the prompt and from extra glenns' "all rooms cable a/c free coffee." the prompt also included "murderface/magnus" as the pairing, "episode aftermath" as the situational prompt, and "distraction" as the emotional keyword. thanks 4 readin :^) 


End file.
